Emergency food aid resumes to N Korea

Fears of mass starvation have led aid agencies to resume emergency food relief to North Korea.

Last month the ABC aired footage smuggled out of North Korea showing orphaned children begging for food and soldiers demanding bribes.

The European Union (EU) is among those to resume direct food aid, partially through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

WFP regional director for Asia Kenro Oshidari says North Korea faces two major problems - its annual food deficit and damage to crop harvests this year.

"North Korea has had yearly [an] annual sort of food deficit. They just simply don't produce enough cereals inside the country, and in the past depended much on food aid as well as commercial imports," he said.

"This number of both food aid and the commercial imports has decreased dramatically.

"Secondly they have two harvests; the winter harvest, which is a smaller one but nevertheless important, was damaged by climatic factors."

Mr Oshidari says a combination of the two problems has put North Korea in a "dire situation".

He says even the 300,000 tonnes of food aid the WFP will provide is far from covering the national food deficit.

The WFP has been seeking about $200 million from donors to help provide food aid to the country, but has only received a quarter of that.

Mr Oshidari says despite the recent assistance from the EU, the lack of funding means it will not be able to provide aid to all 3.5 million people in North Korea.

"At the same time there is implications on our number of staff we can have in that country, the number of offices we can open in that country," he said.

"So both in terms of our operational needs and the number of people that we can serve will be much less."

Mr Oshidari says the program has addressed criticisms that food may not reach those intended by employing strict supply rules.

"First of all we have always practised a very strict policy of no access, no food. So in any geographical area that we don't have access, we don't provide assistance," he said.

"And at the beginning of this emergency operation that we have proposed for the 3.5 million people we have negotiated with the government unprecedented access and flexibility in terms of monitoring both logistically - following the food - and also to be able to interview and visit the households and institutions like hospitals, schools, kindergartens et cetera to follow where our food is going.